I was reading an interesting article on Slashdot the other day concerning Netflix and the status of their improve the movie recommendation challenge. As I was reading it, I started thinking about other ways Netflix could improve their offerings and further distance themselves from their rival Blockbuster. My idea? An ‘in the mail’ button.
My current turnaround time for Netflix rentals is typically around 3 days (I mail it on Monday, they process on Tuesday, and I receive a new movie Wednesday). However, I occasionally get stuck with a 4 to 5 day turnaround due to weekends or slow processing times (I mail it Thursday, they receive it late Friday, process Saturday, and I receive it Monday). It is in this second scenario where Blockbuster and their in-store exchanges becomes an attractive alternative. And I know Blockbuster currently took a beating when they decided to change their rate plans, but eventually they will find a sweet spot and their Total Access (or whatever they choose to call it) will become a very attractive offer.
To combat this, Netflix should enable its users to click on a ‘in the mail’ button, notifying Netflix that a movie is currently on its way, and informing Netflix to begin processing the next item in the queue. This feature provides two huge benefits:
- For the customer, the turnaround time can be reduced from 3 days to 2 days. You click ‘in the mail’ Monday morning, Netflix processes the request, and you have a new movie Tuesday (as opposed to Wednesday under the current system).
- Netflix could better predict the return of movies. If they are identified one to two days ahead of time that a movie is coming back, they can make appropriate adjustments on their end (i.e. Los Angeles is low on Shrek III, Seattle shows X number of Shrek III titles are being returned this week, Netflix can then begin shipping to Los Angeles from Seattle without straining Seattle’s supply, making Los Angeles Shrek III customers happy).
Naturally, the system would need some checks to ensure people are not abusing the system., as quicker mailings means more mailings which means it will cost Netflix more money. The easiest, would give the customer two days to get the movie to Netflix. If Netflix does not receive the movie within two days of the customer clicking the “in the mail” button, Netflix can simply upgrade them to the next highest plan at the current pro-rated rate.
Thoughts?
15 Comments
Remember when we had to drive to the video store to get rentals only to find out the two copies they had were rented out?
What has happened to society?
“If Netflix does not receive the movie within two days of the customer clicking the “in the mail” button, Netflix can simply upgrade them to the next highest plan at the current pro-rated rate.”
Ever mis-click something? I would suggest not assigning a penalty to hitting the button. Users attempting to game the system would be surfaced by a simple DB query.
Actually, since the speed of the USPS is variable “In the mail” may mean 4 days rather than three. So the “In the mail” button would just lead to progressivly more accurate estimation of the time it takes for the movie to return.
Abusing the button, and hitting it when it’s not actually in the mail would just skew the results longer.
Interesting, but I don’t think they will do it. I think the faster turn-arounds are too expensive, they would have to actually up their price. Also you would have people play the system just to steal movies, also upping the price.
“Ever mis-click something?”
Sure, which is why you have an “undo” button.
Very interesting. To reduce abuse, they can limit the use of the “in the mail” button to only once a week. So if one used it on Wednesday he can’t use it again until the following week.
However I think this might cannablize their higher membership plan. It almost like one can hold one more movie. And auto upgrading is not a good customer experience. People just won’t read the terms of use and start to complain about the payment increase.
This is actually how the zip.ca (the “canadian netflix”) service works currently. If you accurately report your returns regularly they give you bonus disks (ie, you have a 3 disks subscription and have 3 out but they’ll send you a 4th one anyway).
It makes sense, they encourage you to report to them that you are returning a disk a few days before they would normally know. It would help them enormously when scheduling what dvds to send to who.
Yeah, ZIP.CA, the Canadian Netflix, has exactly this feature. You pop a DVD in the mail, they pop a DVD in the mail. If you cheat, you lose the feature. You can only have one extra DVD in the mail.
Zip also has a monthly limit after which they start charging shipping and handling.
All in all, a great system.
“To reduce abuse, they can limit the use of the “in the mail” button to only once a week.”
I think the more appropriate way of handling this would be to only allow the “in the mail” button if the previous movie they “in the mail”`d was back in the system.
So if you set a movie as “in the mail”, they sent you a new one, you couldn’t set the new movie as “in the mail” until the previous movie actually got returned to netflix.
here’s a slight variant- a Ship It Now button.
When you push it, that DVD is moved to the top of your queue and your membership plan is upgraded to the next tier, but only until the next disk arrives back at the warehouse. So if I hit Ship It Now on Monday, and they get my return on Wednesday, for only two days I am charged the extra rate. Then my plan goes back to what it was before.
Combine this with a grace period, IE if they get your DVD within two days of you pushing ’ship it now’ you don’t get charged, and I think you have a real winner.
Hmmm, after thinking about it some more, and reading some of the above suggestions, the auto-upgrade is a bad idea. I just know that they would have to add some sort of check in the system to prevent people from over-abusing the feature.
I like John’s idea of limiting it to once a week, or Stephen’s variant of it. Both would work well and require very little maintenance.
They actually had this feature when the service started several years ago. This isn’t a new thing at all.
“diztopia wrote:
Remember when we had to drive to the video store to get rentals only to find out the two copies they had were rented out?
What has happened to society?”
Remember when flaming made someone look like an asshole, and even if they had a point it would then become moot?
remember when Netflix was purposely slowing down the shipment of DVDs to people because it saved them money? i don’t really think they are going to try and find a way to ship more DVDs more often.
Telstra’s Bigpond online movie distribution scheme has exactly that feature. You simple click ‘in the mail’ when you’ve sent a returned DVD and they post the next one assuming they’ll recieve the DVD in the next day or so.
You can abuse it by selecting this and not sending them, but its a monthly account (10 per month, supposedly only three at a time) so they don’t lose anything by having it. In fact it might encourage people to order more than their regular ten, driving up revenue. Its also a great feature for building up trust with customers… (Perhaps something Telstra soley need…)
Netflix is the shiz-nit!
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